This website is inspired by the courageous work of the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in the 1990s.
Her leadership brought moral clarity, bipartisan credibility, and unapologetic common sense to one of the most difficult issues of our time.
She believed immigration reform must balance national interest with fairness, compassion with control, and opportunity with law.
Her famous words still ring true:
“Those who should get in, get in. Those who should be kept out, are kept out. And those who should not be here will be required to leave.”
Although Congress celebrated her work, it failed to act on any of her recommendations. This pamphlet seeks to pick up where she left off—and honor the legacy of a leader who believed that telling the truth was not optional, but essential.
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You don’t have to be a policy expert to know our immigration system is broken. You just turn on the news, live in an impacted state, run a business, or stand in line at an international airport.
Everyone sees it. Everyone says it. No one fixes it.
This pamphlet isn’t a political argument. It’s not red vs. blue. It’s more like a tool kit.
A step-by-step guide written in plain English, not legal code, for anyone who’s ever asked:
Republicans raise money off the fear and the love of cheap labor. Democrats campaign on the sympathy and love of likely voters. Neither side wants to lose their talking point by solving the problem. They claim they want to fix it, but they don’t really mean it.
The last major immigration reform was in 1986. Every administration since has promised reform and delivered nothing but excuses.
We treat skilled engineers and cartel smugglers as if they’re part of the same system. That’s insane—and self-defeating.
Government systems can’t even talk to each other. We’ve got asylum requests in paper files, and visa overstays we don’t even track.
Build the wall” and “Abolish ICE” make headlines. They don’t make policy.
For the past few years, I reviewed all of Barbara Jordan’s testimony to Congress and what she recommended in 1995 is more relevant today than it was then. Congress praised her-then ignored her.
The current members of Congress will also praise her work but it’s likely they will ignore her again.
The purpose of this work is to convince members to go to work.
This pamphlet is organized by problem, not politics. Each chapter explains a major flaw in the system and offers a common-sense solution. Some of these ideas you may agree with. Some you may not. But they all come from the same place:
A belief that our immigration system should be fair, fast, firm, and focused on national interest. (America First)